Drew Collins is an atheist who
experiences the world in black and white. As an educated man of science, he
rejects belief in the paranormal and the existence of demons. Until an energy
he calls "The Beast" takes possession of his wife.

What he witnesses at night in his
own bedroom cannot be reconciled with science. And yet he sees it with his own
eyes, feels its presence, ominous and evil, with his entire being.

Against every instinct, Drew
reaches out for help. It is not just his marriage that’s at stake. The evil
force has permeated his wife's family, tearing them apart and culminating in
bloodshed and murder. Drew must face a stark choice: sacrifice his beliefs and
fight an entity he doesn’t understand and is reluctant to label, or abandon his
wife and her family.

“This is what I’ve
learned about The Beast,” Laura said. “It doesn’t exist in our plane of
existence. It has no physical form. Use that fact to your advantage. It gains
power from negative energy. Remove your negative energy and replace it with
positive energy. Be its opposite. It’s the only way to fight evil.”

Spending his lunch
hours receiving an intense and personalized lesson on the finer points of
demonic shielding, as well as an education on the various cultural ideologies
of good and evil, was the last place Drew Collins expected to find himself in
his five-year plan. His plan was loose and flexible, but he was certain it
included love. He even had a vision about it before he left on his dream
adventure, traveling through Mexico after he graduated from the University of
California at Santa Barbara with a degree in Bio-Psychology. He dreamed he was
destined to go to Mexico to bring something back. What he returned with was
better than his wildest dream and worse than his most horrific nightmare.

Yet here he was, spending
his lunch breaks with his boss, Laura, on the grass at the Self-Realization
Temple. Today he was learning to control his personal energy. Laura studied
with two shaman from different indigenous tribes. One was the Hopi, a small
tribe within the Navajo nation. The other was from the Yaqui Indians, who lived
in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico, south of Arizona, the same tribe associated
with the mentor of Carlos Castaneda, a trained shaman and American author who
held a Ph.D. in Anthropology. Castaneda claimed to have learned his craft from
a Yaqui named Don Juan Matus, whom he claimed was personally trained by a
Diablero, or devil, though some say his mentor never existed. Under ordinary
circumstances, Drew would have considered the teachings of shamans to be
fascinating fodder for an excellent conversation. Today, he considered them to
be a necessary component in the lessons he agreed to pursue – the lessons he
hoped would help him save his wife. Drew was a self-proclaimed atheist, a man
whose beliefs were based in science, a godless man, to put it bluntly, who was
in the peculiar position of being married to a woman who appeared to be
possessed by a demonic presence.

A reasonable
person might ask themselves how this could be so. How could a godless man, an
atheist, believe his wife was possessed? Aren’t demons, the kind that possess
humans, take over their bodies and voices to spread a vile message, associated
with religious belief? Certainly the Catholic religion makes this connection.
His wife was Catholic and he’d seen The Exorcist. For Drew though, The Beast
was secular. It existed as an evil energy, separate and independent from the
confines of religion. It had to. He didn’t believe in God, so he couldn’t
accept The Beast as His antithesis, as a religious man might do. Religious
belief as an explanation for his experience was discarded. He believed in
science. But The Beast was an entity unidentified by scientific study. The
Beast. Science.

Drew recognized
with an awareness that shook the foundation of his being that they could not be
reconciled. In the science he had studied there was no place for demons. And
yet he knew they existed. He had seen The Beast for himself. In his own home.

About
the Author:

Merry Freer is an author of memoir
and fact-based fiction. She is a native of San Diego, where she lives
surrounded by a large, eclectic family and a treasured handful of truly close
friends. While "Doctor, Doctor" is her debut novel, she has been a
writer and editor for many years, including work with the San Diego Chargers
and the San Diego Hall of Champions. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in
Journalism from San Diego State University and has been a featured speaker for
classes dealing with medical ethics.

Her controversial memoir,
"Doctor, Doctor," topped the Best Seller List in True Crime/White
Collar Crime for 10 months and received a "Best Books of 2014" award
from "Suspense Magazine."